Adieu (1812,1819)

Years after the Napoleonic wars have ended a soldier hunting in the forest with his companion gets lost and comes across a small town where they encounter a mad woman playing like a child. The soldier at once recognizes her as the beautiful Comtesse de Vandieres he had once known and protected and loved in an unrequited fashion during the final days of the Napoleonic campaigns in Russia. This great lady had followed her husband and the French troops to Moscow only to meet disaster there with the rest of the French when they were forced to retreat in the dead of winter. After the defeat and retreat she had been reduced first to the state of a camp follower and finally to an almost animal existence. In order to restore her to her former self he uses seemingly modern psychological methods (Freud?) and reconstructs a gigantic mock version of the battle and defeat that he believes left her insane. It seems to have a momentary effect, but the end result is tragic. (Short, Adieu, adieu10.txt)